14: Journey’s End

Another lovely breakfast, this time with a table full of Brits (except for us!).

We got the car loaded and took off by 9:30 (not bad, since our goal was 9:00!). We drove the back roads as far as Amboise and stopped outside of town at the big Auchan market where we made a rather extended visit (it's hard to get out of these huge supermarkets in a hurry, so much to see!) buying picnic goods and oh, yes, more wine.

The journey to Nancy was over 600km but we only stopped once for p&p (picnic & pee) and pulled into town around 5pm. The navigation system took us directly to our hotel and we settled in quickly and headed out to explore.

Unfortunately we (that is, I) heard the directions incorrectly from the hotel clerk and turned right when we should have turned left. This led us to an extended walking tour through one of the less attractive neighborhoods, but we did have two highlights - a pretty park and a beautiful baroque church. After we realized the error of our (my) ways, we caught the bus in the opposite direction and got off a couple of blocks from our planed destination and walked through a couple of very exclusive shopping streets before we reached Place Stanislas.

Wow! Place Stanislas was as impressive as I remembered from 1989 and the early evening light made it especially splendid. We wandered around the square a bit and eventually found a restaurant for a lovely last dinner in France. Werner’s salmon and my steak were both very tasty. We both opted for Leffe beer (yum!) which was somehow very fitting for the meal.

We were so lucky, on that evening at “son et lumière” was scheduled on Place Stanislas! After dinner we walked back to the square and found seats with a pretty good view of the different buildings. The show was really well done, fantastic laser lights and projections, coordinated to music and text (of course in French, but we got the gist of it). What a fantastic end to our stay in France!